Recall for E. coli puts Wolverine Packing's processes on the grill

There have been periodic outbreaks over the last several years of meat thought to be contaminated, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Below are Class 1 recalls (the most dangerous of three levels of seriousness) and how many recalls were tied specifically to E. coli bacteria. Tonnage is combined for beef, pork, poultry and mixed.

The business fallout from Detroit-based Wolverine Packing Co.'s May 19 recall of 1.8 million pounds of ground beef that may be contaminated with potentially deadly E. coli bacteria won't be known for some time.

Investigations, both internal and by government officials, are underway. So is at least one lawsuit.

Wolverine, which had $1 billion in revenue last year, declined to discuss any business practices that may change, or how it may be affected financially, until it completes its own internal investigation.

"Since the voluntary recall was launched, the company still is conducting an internal investigation into the recall and assisting the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Food Safety and Inspection Service as it continues to look into the matter," said Chuck Sanger, Wolverine's outside spokesman via Hartland, Wis.-based food industry public relations firm Charleston Orwig Inc.

"Once all investigations are complete, the senior management team can then analyze what was learned and what remedial steps might be taken. Therefore, right now the company is not in a position to make any final judgments regarding the recall's effect on Wolverine's policy, business or any changes that might be made moving forward."

The recall is the second in Wolverine's 77-year history, Sanger said. He didn't have details about the first, in 2003.

The company was founded in 1937 by Alfred Bonahoom and continues to be owned by the Bonahoom family. Jim Bonahoom is the current president.

The wholesale slaughterhouse, meat packer and distributor based in Detroit's Eastern Market issued a voluntary recall of 1.8 million pounds of Angus steak burgers and ground beef patties after the federal government said 11 people in four states were sickened between April 22 and May 2. The meat was packed between March 31 and April 18.

The recall came after the USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service, along with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, identified patients sickened by E. coli O157:H7. This type of E. coli can cause serious infection with symptoms including severe cramps, nausea and diarrhea.

Identified were five Michigan cases, four in Ohio, and one each in Massachusetts and Missouri. Those affected range in age from 19 to 46.

The meat was sold for restaurant use, but the federal government hasn't disclosed the restaurants. It has identified the wholesalers and retailers that took delivery from Wolverine, including Grand Rapids-based Gordon Food Service Marketplace and the M Sixty Six General Store in Orleans west of Grand Rapids.

No deaths have been tied to the meat. The bacteria involved is referred to as Shiga toxin-producing E. coli, or STEC. The bacteria can cause severe disease, including bloody diarrhea and hemolytic uremic syndrome, a type of kidney failure, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

A woman filed a lawsuit in Kalamazoo last week seeking $25,000 from Wolverine claiming she was sickened by its meat and hospitalized for six days. She ate at an unnamed Farmington restaurant.

A co-counsel on the case is Seattle law firm Marler Clark LLP, which specializes nationally in high-profile food poisoning outbreaks, and says it has won more than $500 million for clients over the past 20 years.

Founder Bill Marler, who said he has sued every major U.S. meat manufacturer, outlined what he expects Wolverine's strategy to be.

"Wolverine is a grinding operation that likely sourced trim and other meat to use in producing hamburgers," he wrote in an email. "They will likely try and point the finger upstream to one of the sources of the meat. However, they likely used multiple sources of meat to make the hamburger in question, so it will be difficult, if not impossible, to sort that out. (Food Safety and Inspection Services) will not fine them or likely do anything. Civil litigation is the only recourse for the consumer."

Bad press and lawsuits trigger worry by suppliers, who may turn elsewhere.

"Trying to sell back to that industry that is purchasing can be an uphill battle," said Ben Chapman, an assistant professor and food safety extension specialist at North Carolina State University. He blogs about food safety at BarfBlog.com.

"The loss of that 1.8 million pounds is one thing. It's difficult to put a monetary value on (goodwill); it's more than just the product."

Companies that have closed in the wake of a major recall couldn't survive the combination of lawsuits and loss of trust, Chapman said.

In Wolverine's case, he expects customers to have questions no matter what investigations show.

"If everything is up to what's expected, the buyers may say, 'What are you to doing to address what went wrong?' " he said. "It's not a random act. Something happened. Either the system they have failed or the system they have wasn't good enough."

The amount of meat in question is small compared to national beef totals. Nearly 26 billion pounds of beef were produced in 2012; about half of that was ground beef.

If beef production has remained on that pace, Wolverine's recall would represent just 0.0069 percent of the beef supply.

The Wolverine recall pales in comparison to the largest recalls.

The largest U.S. ground beef recall was 25 million pounds from Rogers, Ark.-based Hudson Foods Co. in 2007. Rival Arkansas-based food processing giant Tyson Foods Inc. eventually spent $632 million to acquire Hudson, which had lost its largest client, Burger King, because of the recall. Congress passed stricter meat quality controls after the situation.

Elizabeth, N.J.-based Topps Meat Co. recalled nearly 22 million pounds of ground beef in 2007 after 38 people were sickened with E. coli O157:H7. The company closed within two months of the USDA's investigation, and was liquidated.

Kroger stores in 2008 recalled an undetermined amount of E. coli O157:H7-tainted ground beef that had sickened 21 people in Michigan and 20 in Ohio. That meat had been sold in Kroger supermarkets and supplied to other retailers.

Nebraska Beef, which slaughters cattle for processing, later sued one of its cattle suppliers, Loveland, Colo.-based Meyer Natural Foods LLC, over the situation. The case was settled in 2011.

The last USDA meat recall in Michigan came in 2013, when about 1,000 pounds of salmonella-contaminated ground beef was recalled by Sterling Heights-based Jouni Meats Inc. and Troy-based Gab Halal Foods after it was sold directly to consumers and to an undisclosed restaurant in Macomb County.

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